Yahoo News reports that Pelosi would drain the swamp, now isn’t that just precious?

Day One: Put new rules in place to “break the link between lobbyists and legislation.”

Day Two: Enact all the recommendations made by the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Time remaining until 100 hours: Raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, maybe in one step. Cut the interest rate on student loans in half. Allow the government to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients.

Broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with federal funds — “I hope with a veto-proof majority,” she added in an Associated Press interview Thursday.

All the days after that: “Pay as you go,” meaning no increasing the deficit, whether the issue is middle class tax relief, health care or some other priority.

To do that, she said, Bush-era tax cuts would have to be rolled back for those above “a certain level.” She mentioned annual incomes of $250,000 or $300,000 a year and higher, and said tax rates for those individuals might revert to those of the Clinton era. Details will have to be worked out, she emphasized.

“We believe in the marketplace,” Pelosi said of Democrats, then drew a contrast with Republicans. “They have only rewarded wealth, not work.”

“We must share the benefits of our wealth” beyond the privileged few, she added.

Excuse me if I don’t buy in. First, “break the link between lobbyists and legislation.”? You’d think that the Democrats were the only ones with a plan — they’re not, but their plan isn’t much better than the one proposed by the GOP — so, it’s just more same-ol’ same-ol’ politics. Here’s some comments made way back last January on both parties plans for cleaning up the lobbying mess.

Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook had similar criticisms, calling the existing lobbying system “legalized bribery” and saying the Republican and Democratic ethics proposals are “reform lite.”

The left-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington called on both parties to require more disclosure from lawmakers and their staffs.

The group’s executive director, Melanie Sloan, said in a written statement that any meaningful reform must include “changing House rules to allow outsiders to file ethics complaints.”

Also missing from both parties’ proposals, the group said, are limits on appropriations earmarks, restrictions on the employment of lawmakers’ spouses and children, and restrictions on the use of corporate jets.

The group also noted that, unlike the GOP proposal, the Democrats’ plan would not strip the pensions from lawmakers convicted of crimes related to their official duties.

Kinda like when their Democratic colleges get caught actually having sex with underage interns, they don’t force them to resign — they let them keep on bein’ re-elected and then retire — full pensions intact. That’ll sure show ‘em who’s got some big-brass ethics!

But, on to day two: Implementing ALL of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. Let’s see, what about these?

Key 9/11 Commission Recommendations

• The U.S. government must attack terrorists and their organizations
  by identifying and prioritizing actual or potential sanctuaries for
  terrorists, and have a realistic strategy to keep possible terrorists
  insecure and on the run, using all elements of national power. The
  U.S. should reach out, listen to, and work with other countries that
  can help in this regard.
• The U.S. should engage in vigorous efforts to track terrorist
  financing. This should be a central part of U.S. counterterrorism
  efforts.
• The United States should combine terrorist travel intelligence,
  operations, and law enforcement in a strategy to intercept terrorists,
  find terrorist travel facilitators, and constrain terrorist mobility.
• Secure identification should begin in the United States. The federal
  government should set standards for the issuance of birth certificates
  and sources of identification, such as drivers licenses.

There are a lot of recommendations in those 42 pages, and a cursory glance through them brought those above to my attention — ’cause they don’t look like ideas that the Democrats would be very serious about. So, her claim to implement ALL of the recommendations is just more politics.

Next: “Raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, maybe in one step.” Always sounds good, until you look at the ramifications. It would do nothing but cause less job opportunities for teens and entry-level workers. Always has, always will. No one should be so self-deluded as to think that society owes them a living in an entry-level job. That’s where you start — while someone basically pays you to learn on-the-job, then, if you actually apply yourself, actually learn something, actually show up on time and WORK!!! — then you deserve more compensation for your efforts — that’s called a raise. The cradle-to-grave socialists on the Left want “equality” for all — and their method of achieving this is to dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator.

Cutting the rate of student loans I’m ambivalent about — I like low interest rates personally — and negotiating with the drug companies to lower the cost of the Social Security Drug Benefit program seems like a no-brainer to me — have to agree with her on these I guess.

“Broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with federal funds”, back to ethics or maybe just basic morality, the Democrats just can’t seem to support killing the unborn enough.

And, then there’s the tax cuts. Soak the rich! Yeah, that’s the ticket. What they never tell you in the preamble to raising taxes, is that they always manage to get the middle class hammered as well. Funny, huh? Check out the Alternative Minimum Tax sometime. Originally created way back in 1969 to stop the super-rich from not paying any taxes, those wise legislators in Congress forgot to index the sucker for inflation. Thirty seven years of inflation to be exact. Now, the level where the AMT kicks in is well under $100,000 now, especially if your state, like this one (CA), has a high state income tax rate. I’d bet the farm that a House Speaker Pelosi won’t do squat about the AMT — ’cause the dirty little secret is that it brings in WAY TOO MUCH MONEY into the Federal Treasury to ever let it go. That’s why the touted Bush Tax Cuts, which helped everyone — ’cause everyone that pays taxes got a tax cut — didn’t help the rich all that much. For them, the AMT kicked in and they screwed the pooch, tax wise! So, once again — it’s all politics.

All politics — all the time. Goes for those GOP members of Congress, too, IMHO. What can we say?

Well, what she would actually do, is cut off the funding for the war in Iraq, cripple or destroy the strong economy we have right now, and endanger all of us by causing the Executive branch to focus entirely on Impeachment defense, instead of Homeland Security Defense. She would try to stop all monitoring of communications between Al Qaeda and those in the US, and there would never be a hard investigation of classified leaks of national security information to the press. Cut & run, dodge & weave, stick head firmly in sand — that’s about as good as the Democrat plan gets.

It’s simple — Vote Republican in November — ‘Cause those other guys are gonna get us all killed! (db)

Technorati Tags: Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House

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